# Scaling Brands Amid Tariffs, AI Search, and Rising CAC

**Podcast:** How I Built This with Guy Raz
**Published:** 2026-07-30

## Transcript

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Hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab.
I'm Guy Raz.
This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges.
Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show who will help me try to help you.
And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show.
Our number is 1-800-433-1298.
Leave us a one minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with.
All right, let's get to it.
Joining me this week is Untuckit co-founder Chris Riccobono.
Chris, welcome back to the show.
Great to be here again.
So Chris, when we last talked, not that long ago, in 2025, you told us the story of Untuckit.
And if anybody missed it and wants to go back and listen, I highly recommend you do.
We'll drop a link to it in the show notes.
Chris, you started out as a medical device sales rep.
You had no fashion background.
And you were thinking about different businesses until this idea came to the shirt idea, a shorter shirt, a button down shirt that you could wear untucked.
And you almost tucked yourself out of it because you thought, well, if there was a market for it, somebody else would be doing it.
But within about 10 years of that idea, with the help of a friend of yours from Columbia Business School, Aaron Sanandris, you guys built Untuck It.
going from zero to like 73 stores in just four years.
You've been through a lot.
That episode was so powerful because it had so many ups and downs and a lot at stake.
First of all, how have things been since we last spoke?
They've been okay.
It never ends.
When I was on that episode, we talked about COVID.
We talked about high interest rates taken on debt to survive COVID.
And I believe we were just touching on tariffs.
But we had not gotten there yet.
I think we were predicting that there could be some tariff issues.
Well, they, of course, hit us hard.
We had about $9 million that was pulled out of our bank account that we had no line of sight to.
And that was for two reasons.
One, the normal tariffs, but then also Trump removed in the middle of the night this 3-2-1 de minimis rule, which you could ship from Mexico.
It had been in effect for like 100 years without paying duties.
So that kind of doubly hit us.
So we are fighting through it.
We still have a loyal following.
We just started getting into wholesale.
That's new.
So now we'll have e-com stores and wholesale, but we're working through the cash issues.
So you'll be in department stores?
We'll be in department stores for the first time ever.
That's great.
Congrats on that.
Yeah, should allow the brand to really scale even further.
So I want to ask you about another, you know, we talked about this briefly when you were on the show, but you had launched a second brand, a sportswear brand called Greatness Wins.
Tell me about a little bit about how that's going.
I mean, you know, this was a completely separate parallel brand, hard to run two things at the same time, and you're a very determined guy.
But tell me a little bit about how that's going.
That's going great as well.
We pivoted there a little bit.
And for those who are out there are in...
In anything that they're marketing on Facebook and paid social, everyone knows that the customer acquisition costs are very high just based on the amount of competition out there.
So our pivot was to go into wholesale earlier, but in this case, Greengrass Golf Shops, which is, for those of you know, the golf brands, the Peter Millar's, the Johnny O's, you can do $150 million north in just those shops.
The way I looked at it, it was a way to increase revenue, but also free marketing because if our shirts at your local golf course, you go in there, you buy the golf shirt, you then go home, you go on your website, you buy our shorts.
So now we have a golf and athletic brand.
It's a battle.
It's, you know, retail is tough.
You have the Viore's, you have the Lululemon's, you have the, the aloes.
These are monstrous companies, Nike.
Um, but we are finding a way, you know, by trying to go different directions and, um, you know, lower the cost of acquiring a customer and it's exciting.
I love that word battle because I think you used it when you talked to us.
You know, you're not sugarcoating this.
It is tough to run an apparel brand.
It is true.
It is a constant battle.
I was wondering, you know, Chris, I mean, as you just explained, the customer acquisition landscape is so different from when you launched Untuckit.
If you were starting from scratch in 2026 with no brand recognition, what would you do differently?
How would you build Untuckit today?
Do you even have a sense of how you would do that?
What's interesting about Untucket was everyone's doing paid social today.
Even when everyone was telling us, all the experts in marketing were saying, stop marketing on anything but paid social.
It's all dead.
We said, well, we can afford it and we don't agree.
And we went on, we talked about this last time, we went on airline magazines.
We went on radio for a fashion brand, which is rare.
because you can't see it.
We went on Howard Stern.
We went on the USA Today's Back of New York Posts.
And that's what made us successful.
And we mixed that in with TV, more expensive, paid social, and it all came together.
And by the way, we're still doing that today and very few are doing it.
So that's how I would do it.
Now, it would be a lot more challenging because my cost of acquisition on Facebook when it was us, Casper and Bonobos, I think, and maybe Warby Parker.
back in 2011, it was a lot easier.
It was like a gold mine.
You went on there and you said, oh my gosh, this is incredible.
Those days are gone, probably forever.
And now it's getting even more complex.
Now we're trying to come up with a strategy around AI and no longer about SEO because now I'm going into chat GPT and typing, I want an untucked shirt.
What's the best way to do it?
And now we got to figure out how we're going to pop up and not someone else.
So it's a constantly changing game, as you can imagine.
Yeah.
Well, Chris, we asked you to come on to help us give some callers advice.
So are you ready to take our first call?
Yep.
Let's do it.
Okay.
Welcome to the advice line.
You are on with Chris Riccobono, founder of Untucket.
Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business, please.
Hi, Guy.
Hi, Chris.
It's a pleasure to be here.
My name is Adrian Alvarez.
I'm from Sacramento, California, and I am the founder of Aero Shorts, which is an athleisure and lifestyle brand focusing on making affordable shorts that are known as hybrid shorts.
Cool.
And tell me a little bit about the shorts.
How would you use them?
Yeah, so we call them hybrid shorts because I designed them with a goal that they should be short to use for pretty much any occasion.
They're fast drying, so they can use it at the beach, at the pool, for athletes who sweat.
They have compression for athletes, for gym goers, for people who go hiking, weekend warriors.
They're pretty much shorts meant for every occasion, and that's how they're meant to be used.
And tell me a little bit about how this business came about.
First of all, how long has it been going?
Yeah, so I created this business two years ago when I was a senior in high school.
Wow, okay.
I'm currently a sophomore in college, so it's been my second year working on this business.
I came about when I was playing volleyball in high school.
I played on club teams.
I went to tournaments, and I realized there was a need for more affordable shorts.
Shorts are $65 to $80 nowadays, and I believe that you shouldn't have to pay high price points for high quality shorts.
So that's why I kind of came with a goal to find a manufacturer to make more affordable shorts for young athletes and for pretty much anyone.
So your shorts are looking at your website about 35 bucks, roughly.
Yeah, I keep my shorts at $35.
That's my goal.
It's my motto to stay consistency.
That's awesome.
So you started this in high school and did you find like a manufacturing partner through like, you know?
Did you just go online and find like a partner or manufacturer in China and start that way?
I actually went to a sourcing show in Las Vegas.
I went there and I was able to meet vendors who sourced materials.
I got to see what fabrics I liked.
And from there, I was able to find the fabrics and produce them overseas, found a product that was high quality.
And that's where I pretty much went from there.
Awesome.
And tell me a little bit about how the business is doing right now.
What are you doing in sales?
Yeah.
So our first year of sales, we became profitable.
Our first year was at $100,000 sales.
Nice.
And this year and our second year, we're on track to make approximately $400,000.
Wow.
Amazing.
And this is all D2C?
Yes.
All direct consumer, all e-comers.
We sell online.
We used to do public shops when we were smaller, but now we mainly just sell online through our website.
Got it.
Okay.
Before we bring on Chris, tell us your question.
Yeah, so my question is, I found success in my brand so far.
I appeal to volleyball players particularly, but I really want Arrows to be more of a mainstream big-name brand that can compete with other big-name brands.
So I want to know what should be my strategies and goals to build a bigger brand identity to get more of a target audience.
All right, Chris, I want to bring you in.
Say hello to Adrian.
I was trying to figure out how to build his brand to build it up and scale it.
Let's think about it there.
First of all, thoughts for Adrian.
Questions before we try and answer his question.
Hi, Adrian.
Nice to meet you.
Congrats, man.
That's awesome that you're that young getting going.
Pretty impressive.
So, yeah, a lot goes in my mind.
I mean, obviously, you're now in my world of a new athletic brand, probably the most competitive place you can be.
Not a bad thing, just throwing it out there.
But one thing I know that you might have an advantage of is the youth, right?
You're obviously going after younger people and you've seen a lot of success stories there.
I wish that I could be in that space at times because of the TikToks of the world and because of all the different...
ways that your generation shops now, which is different than the older generation.
How has your growth been?
Where has it been mainly through?
Have you been on paid social or have you been doing it free through influencers or organic growth?
Mainly through paid social.
I haven't really done any influencers yet, mainly just through ads, social media ads.
We make a lot of funny videos on our Instagram.
So that's how we pretty much post most of our content.
I have a question for you, Adrian, a bunch of questions.
I mean, listen, you are wondering how do you turn this into a more mainstream brand, a bigger brand?
Obviously, that is your goal.
And I think that's an admirable goal.
But I think before you start to think about that or start to move in that direction, you have to ask yourself and answer a few questions, right?
So first of all, who is your tribe, right?
If you look at Untuckett, it's sort of guys between sort of roughly, let's say, 20 to...
late sort of 50s, you know, athletic or, you know, want to, you know, sort of outdoors kind of lifestyle, but it's maybe slightly more affluent.
I wonder who you are.
I mean, you play volleyball.
This started out from your experience.
Is it college students?
Is it volleyball players?
Is it young men who live in warm weather states?
Like who do you think of as your core tribe?
Yeah, definitely the younger audience.
Definitely people in college, people in high school.
That's who I really made the shorts for.
I see people golfing in my shorts, people surfing in them.
I see a wanting for a different use of my shorts, and I can really see it, especially in the younger generation.
I mean, we live in our shorts, so we're always using them in different ways.
And do you have a sense of what percentage of your existing customers buy a second pair?
Yeah, about 60% of our customers return.
So it's a pretty good return rate.
Yeah, no, the one other thing I'd say is like, what's your ultimate goal here?
And I think it makes a difference.
Like, do you want to do this for fun in a way, you know, build this up to three, four or $5 million, make a little few extra bucks and then go into finance?
Or do you want to build this into a $50 million brand?
I know it sounds obvious, but that's not always the case.
Like, would you be very happy with it being a $5 million brand and pulling off $100,000?
and kind of living your life that way?
Like what's your goal?
I definitely want this brand to be something big.
I definitely, like you said, in the $50 million range, I want it to be able to compete with the big brands of the world, like the Viores, the Nikes, the Lululemons.
Those are the people I want to go after and those are the brands I want to be up there with.
I mean, those brands...
They, I think, and on Tika too, built their brands on specific tribes.
You know, Lululemon, obviously around yoga.
Viore, men's originally around men and yoga, but then sort of board shorts, you know, men who were surfing and playing sports.
And I think that's been core to their success.
I mean, I think what you want to think about as you start to build out how you're going to do this is...
Who is your community?
And if you think you know that, then really leaning into that tribe and building the brand around them and using them to be a force multiplier.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah, my other thought is that if you want to build this brand, you're going to have to, and I'll speak to this all the time now because of all the growing pains I've had with Untucket when it comes from cash flow purposes.
You will need to raise money if you want to grow the brand.
It's just a fact.
So now's the time in my mind, you want to go to friends and family and you want to grab something, 150K, right?
On Tuck, it went from 90 to 300 to 500.
And that's when we raised money, when we went to 3 million.
So that's my first point.
And then the second point is you really have to start thinking about a strategy.
Where are you going to spend money?
How are you going to grow?
And then, yes, I think I agree with Guy.
Who's your...
It seems like you found your target audience because there is not much competition in the volleyball world.
So that made me think, wait a second, maybe you do want to focus on volleyball right now.
And I know you want to be shorts for everyone, but shorts for everyone, you're now competing with 70 great brands.
Not a bad thing.
Yours are less money, although there are other brands that make it for less money.
Maybe focusing on volleyball temporarily gets you out there because there's no competition.
So you start running ads on volleyball, two volleyball players might be a thought.
You might want to do that separately anyway.
because now you're the only game in town.
But you really got to fine tune that message.
Shirts designed to be worn on tuck took me a year to come up with.
That message is important, right?
Shorts for everyone can't really use that.
We all have those now.
I mean, I sell them too, right?
Shorts, you can go swimming, you can go play golf, whatever it may be.
Just think about how are you going to continue to differentiate beyond the price point?
Got it.
Chris, one final thought.
If Adrian was to raise cash in the next, let's say, two or three years, where would you put that cash?
I like to simplify this stuff in a way, especially if you're an e-commerce brand.
At the end of the day, you need good product, and then you market and you sit back.
That's how you're going to know whether you're going to succeed.
And I don't like wasting time.
This was me, right?
I had no interest in building a $5 million brand.
I wanted to build a big brand.
And if I wasn't going to, then I didn't need to be hanging around wasting time doing it.
That's just me.
That's not everyone.
So my point is bring some money in and allocate it to marketing and see if you can get some momentum.
But that's changed a little bit because it's very, very hard on paid social to get momentum, right?
So you have to think about other ways.
And maybe it's, you know, and I'm making this up.
Maybe there's a volleyball radio.
something or maybe there's something, you know, and you start marketing there for nothing.
And all of a sudden people are coming in.
And then of course, for you, I mean, I would focus on content on TikTok and on, you know, telling your story, fine tune your story, but I would use the money.
I hate to say it sounds basic, but it's product and marketing, right?
That's, that's going to determine whether you're, if people, if you're getting the brand in front of people and they're not buying, well, there's a problem, right?
I'm just saying, get the cash in the door while you were, while you went from a hundred to 400, because it'll be a lot easier.
than when you go from 400 to 500 or 600.
Yeah.
Definitely, yeah.
The brand is called Eras Shorts.
Adrian Alvarez, good luck, man.
Thanks for calling in.
Thank you for advice.
Good luck, guys.
Yeah, thank you.
Good luck.
It's awesome.
High school student starts a business.
Yeah, I love those stories.
It's great.
It's great.
I mean, this guy, I mean, even if it totally collapses, which it won't, he's got his whole career ahead of him to build on this.
And I mean...
Everything he does at this point just increases the chance that he's going to succeed.
I was going to say the exact same thing.
If it were to fail, he's ahead of the game.
Exactly.
Yeah.
All right.
We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with another caller and another round of advice.
Stay with us.
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Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab.
I'm Guy Raz and my guest today is Chris Riccobono, the founder of Untuck It.
And we are taking your calls and let's bring in our next caller.
Please tell us your name, where you're calling from and a little bit about your business.
My name is Preet Anand.
I'm the CEO and co-founder of Snug Safety and I'm calling from the Rockies.
Snug is a free daily check-in for seniors who live alone.
So that way if something happens, people will know and can get them the right help.
Okay.
Thanks for calling in.
So this is an app that you're talking about.
It's a service through the app.
Yes.
Okay.
And tell me how it works.
Like I'm a senior citizen.
How does it work?
Super simple.
So Guy, you would pick that after breakfast, you want to check in with Snug every day.
Let's say at 830 in the morning, we'll send you a bunch of reminders.
And if you don't open your Snug app and hit just the basic check mark by 830, we will then send you a few more reminders.
Then we will notify your emergency contacts.
Hey, Guy did not check in this morning.
Here is his last known location.
And that's on our free plan.
If you are on our paid plan, we have a alarm service that will call you as well, call your emergency contacts.
And then if still no one confirms you're okay, arrange a visit by emergency services.
Okay, cool.
And tell me a little bit about when this started and the story behind it.
Yeah, so this was back in 2017.
I was in the process of selling a different business.
conversation with a customer, her name was Jan.
And she said, you know, I don't need help where I can call for help.
I need help for if I can't respond, if something happens.
In her case, she had had a seizure before and she says, who's going to know?
You know, she at the time was 70, she lives alone.
And she was worried that if something happened, no one could know for days.
And then when she could have gotten help, she wouldn't.
So that's where it started from there.
We realized, you know what, this is something different.
This is unique.
We learned about how many people are living alone in the country.
Now over 17 million seniors live alone.
And we realized we could do something focused for them.
And it's just been the little engine that could from there.
Cool.
All right.
I imagine, Preet, that there are probably some competitors out there, maybe slightly similar services.
Tell me a little bit about how you guys are doing.
I mean, where are your sales at right now?
Yeah, we're in the mid six figures, right around $400,000 in annual revenue.
This year should grow 70% or more.
And that's subscription revenue.
Okay, that's great.
And how much does subscription cost?
The subscription is $20 a month.
And I imagine most people who are sort of interested in this are interested for their parents or elderly relatives.
It's definitely that.
In a lot of cases, it's the senior themselves who chooses for it because they want to stay living independently, that they don't want to be in a position where they become burdened.
It's an easy, light touch way so that way they can keep their independence.
Right.
Okay.
Before we bring on Chris, tell us your question for us.
Yeah.
We're doing all right, but we really want to grow awareness of snug.
There's all the time.
And we hear about people who say, you know what, I wish I had known about this years ago because my mom could have used it.
Or somebody who says, you know, I had to give up my dog because I was worried about what was going to happen to them if something happened to me.
And so we just need to really grow awareness about what we do and how do we do that with the targeted budget?
Not even just customer acquisition, but just awareness of the solution.
All right, Chris, I want to bring you in.
Please say hello to Preet and his product is called Snug.
You're dealing with an older customer base, right?
You're basically targeting this to people over 65.
How do you increase awareness?
How do you reach these folks?
How are you doing, Preet?
Congratulations so far.
Nice to meet you.
Thank you.
Do you have any marketing budget?
And what is it?
And what are you doing?
Yeah, we do have marketing budget.
We can, this year, easily deploy up to $50,000.
Could go more if we need to.
But right now...
Most of our growth comes from the combination of Google and word of mouth.
I would say about 70% is just word of mouth.
We are seeing some success on actually sponsoring YouTubers who are senior YouTubers, but we are constantly trying new things to try to find that channel that'll help us break out.
So, yeah, you know, one thing that I like is, believe it or not, is radio.
Radio reads.
targeting on Sirius or Spotify or where you hit a massive amount of people and you can really target your demographic and you can get a nice 30 second read that tells the whole story.
You know, a notch above that is you go on like a, I'm not afraid of politics just so you know when I market.
So this is not my...
I'm not going to say one way or the other who I would choose politically, but you go on these shows, like whether it's a CNN host, a Fox News host, or, you know, who have these radio shows, people listen to those.
These people who follow these political commentators are obsessed with them.
This is the type of app I feel like that if you get to the right person, there's no reason not to have it.
You know, I could say it if my dad was alone right now, I would sign him up.
Why not?
Right.
To me, it's a great product.
It's not a hard sell.
So now you just got to get it out there.
And obviously going on paid social, which is the normal way you would go, I don't think this product works on there.
I just don't think that's the best way.
It's tough to create an ad, right?
So I think telling the story in 30 seconds, whether I think it's start with these reads on Spotify or on Sirius where you can just hit tons of people.
And the next level would be you pick one guy and I would almost do both in separate times so you can measure them.
You pick one guy.
Yes, a little bit more expensive.
Might be 700 a read.
Do three weeks worth.
If the guy's passionate about that, it will work.
And if it doesn't work, then you'll learn something.
It's important to know why isn't it working, right?
It's not wasted money.
Okay, the message is being told wrong.
If that didn't work and that didn't bring in sales, then I got to tweak the messaging.
I think it's great advice.
And you probably came to the conclusion that social media really isn't where you want to deploy your cash because your product is solving an emotional problem, right?
This is a trust-based product.
Absolutely.
And a trust-based product is distributed through trusted people, intermediaries, right?
So I would look at terrestrial radio rather than...
Spotify or even Sirius, because I think a lot of seniors are listening to terrestrial radio like the Dave Ramseys or the Mark Levins and, you know, Sean Hannity's of the world, Brian Kilmeade, whoever it is.
I mean, that and by the way, that's expensive.
There's no question.
It's not it.
You know, it's a bargain.
But to me, that's a starting point.
But the other thing and this is this is interesting because I I recently was talking with a PR rep and.
You know, I was asking, like, what matters now?
You know, and 10, 15, 20 years ago, a matter was an article in New York Times, right?
Or if you're trying to come up with a new product, cosmetics, you go to like Vogue or Cosmopolitan.
Today, it's, of course, it's all online, right?
It's all social media.
In your case, it's somewhat different.
Like, you may actually really benefit from having an article in a local paper or...
or a spot on local TV news and your story, the story of what you built is really compelling.
Like I would think about really putting some time and energy into pitching local TV reporters and local newspaper reporters or community publications to write about this thing, how this happened.
How did you start this business?
What was the idea behind it?
And you want to, you really want to also aim the message at.
the adult children, right?
And that's where some social may be interesting, right?
But I still think earned media is a really interesting thing to explore because it's like, as Chris said with the radio, it's almost like an old school way of doing things.
And in your case, it may be the sweet spot.
Okay, thank you.
Yeah, we've definitely seen earned media have a lot of impact for us.
We were in NPR a few months ago and we're still...
up significantly year over year off of that.
And we've also seen some success with ARP before.
You made a good point.
You almost want to test whether it's the 40-year-old per kid or the actual.
A lot of these older people are very stubborn and they don't actually want that type of service.
So it's almost more that it's the children.
So then I don't think that changes the game of radio.
You might just want to check.
you know, more stuff that I market for Untucket, which is sports radio and stuff like just normal people listening in.
And then, and then, yeah, it is, it is, I've never been able to figure this part out, but it's like, if you can find a way to get to every geriatric doctor, they're going to want to provide it to their customer.
You can put those brochures in there.
They'll talk about it to their patient, but that's challenging because you got to have a kind of a sales force, but it's that type of product that you have people who will want to share it.
Right.
Because it's.
If you're in that position, a church or a doctor, it's beneficial for these elderly people.
Yeah.
Can I ask you all one more question related to that?
Sure.
So a lot of folks don't want to use something like a life alert or something that physically signals a lowering independence.
And what we haven't done so far is sort of message, let's call it against life alert or as an alternative to it.
I personally get fired up about it because LifeAlert hasn't really innovated since the 80s.
And when you set up with them, it's a three-year contract unless you die.
Yet they still have massive brand awareness.
On the other hand, though, if you do it that way, you're sort of advertising for them versus taking through these trusted channels.
How do you all think about that?
I don't think this is a...
necessarily a competitor to LifeAlert or an alternative.
I think it can be, right?
But LifeAlert, famously, I fall and I can't get up, right?
I think that's what it is, right?
That is unfortunately 100%.
Classic commercial.
It was parodied.
I mean, it's like, I'm not surprised it's a huge brand and they probably haven't had to innovate very much.
It's very simple.
You push a button, I fall and I can't get up and you push a button.
That is a product that probably a lot of people...
like and want to use.
This to me could be complimentary in the sense that it is more like this is just a daily check-in.
It's different.
Life alert is something you only use in an emergency.
This is just daily reassurance.
And I think you really want to position it that way because if you got a life alert, that's a...
you know, the anxiety just kind of ratchets it up, right?
You're like, oh my God, I've got a life alert.
You know, if you had a seizure and you're out of it, you're not going to be pushing life alert.
You could be laying there alive.
You know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of reason.
You got to be pretty with it to press life alert.
You're just failing.
You can't get up.
That's kind of, or you have chest pain, but I think it's more of the examples that I read about with you are like post seizure or, you know, maybe you're just out of it for whatever reason that you're not thinking about.
Recovering from surgery, whatever.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We just shared a story of somebody who had a low blood sugar attack and it's not got them paramedics.
So, yeah.
OK, thank you.
I love it.
It's awesome.
It's a really cool idea.
Congrats, Preet Anand.
The brand is called Snug.
Good luck.
Thank you for calling in.
Thank you.
Good luck, Preet.
All right.
We're going to take another quick break, but we'll be right back with another caller.
Stay with us.
I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to The Advice Line right here on How I Built This Lab.
Welcome back to The Advice Line on How I Built This Lab.
I'm Guy Raz, and today we're taking your calls with Untucket co-founder Chris Riccobono.
Chris, what do you say?
Ready for the next call?
Let's do it.
All right, let's bring our next caller.
Welcome to The Advice Line.
Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business, please.
Hello, Guy and Chris.
I'm Derek, and I'm calling in from Arlington, Virginia.
My company is Hockey Ninja, and we are a hockey equipment company.
We specialize in hockey visors.
The half shields you see the pro players wear.
And for our customers that want a little more protection, our full-face titanium hybrids.
Awesome.
Welcome to the show, Derek.
So visors, I'm assuming, I think when I watch hockey, does anyone play with an open-faced helmet anymore?
I think there are a few players that are still grandfathered in.
But there was a rule past, it's probably 10 or 15 years now, that you're no longer allowed to play without a visor.
Right, because a puck hits you in the forehead and it can be devastating.
Right.
Yeah.
And what I mean, if the players in the NHL are already playing with a visor, tell me who is who are your customers?
You know, my customers range from beer leaguers, you know, hockey actually is a growing sport again, to high school players, even youth players at this point.
The majority of the business right now, especially in the U.S., players care a little bit more about their dental work.
And so the full face shields are a bigger part of the business.
We started out with visors and have kind of added, we started with three products.
Now we're probably close to 30.
But the full face shield is the core part of the business right now.
The full face shield.
So and just.
Describe what it looks like.
It's not like a metal cage, right?
It's a clear plastic.
Yeah.
And so up until recently, you've had a choice of the full metal cage, which I never loved having the bars two inches from my eyesight.
It was kind of tough.
Right.
Or you had the kind of what we called the fishbowl.
It was an all plastic piece, not great airflow.
They tended to fog.
And so this is kind of a marriage of those two things.
We have a titanium lower cage and we have a replaceable really high-end plastic visor.
You can even wear that visor as a, you know, the replacement visor can be worn as a visor only.
Got it.
Okay.
Tell me what makes your product different.
I mean, this exists.
It's out there.
Why would somebody buy from Hockey Ninja versus, I don't know, the big brands that are out there?
I think first and foremost, for us, it's safety.
We import Macrolon, which is a Lexan plastic from Bayer Material Sciences in Germany.
And so this is...
a material that's used by audi and bugatti for the headlamps and it's known for impact resistance is known for optical clarity.
And my background on the consumer electronics side of things is more so on the optics side of that.
And so it's something I know a little bit about.
Also, most testing bodies will test those visors, the other brands at 65 to 75 miles an hour.
We test ours at 120, which is faster than any pro slap shot that's ever been clocked.
So from a safety standpoint, optical clarity, our anti-fog.
coatings, I think, are second to none.
You know, that's a challenge with this type of shield.
If you play, especially in the summertime in an indoor rink, there's a lot of humidity.
And if you don't have a good product, it's going to fog on you.
And that doesn't end so well.
So, and I'm looking at your site and these are not crazy expensive.
I mean, some of them are 50 bucks, 79, 80 bucks.
So you mentioned that you were in the industry, you focused on optics.
Is this...
Your full-time job now, what you're doing at Hockey Ninja?
No, right now, Hockey Ninja is a side hustle.
You know, that's something I think I have in common with Chris.
I know for a long time, even into the seven figures, that you were still working your job at GE.
And I think that was kind of a relief to hear because sometimes I feel like, you know, I'm maybe not a true entrepreneur because I haven't gone out on a limb and just kind of thrown caution to the wind and gone down that path.
But I actually still love my full-time job.
But Hockey Ninja is my baby and I want to grow this thing.
Awesome.
Okay.
Before we dive in further, what's your question for us?
Being that it is a side hustle and my time is somewhat limited, do I go down that path of leaning heavily into social media, which you guys have talked about a lot on the show already, but that's not my forte?
because we recently received NHL clearance on several of our products, do I go down that path and go after those equipment managers and those teams and try to grow that side of the business and maybe get a player involved?
Okay, interesting.
Before I forget, what are you guys doing in sales, roughly?
So right now we're averaging around 250K.
We've gone as high as 400, and that's kind of leveled out a little bit.
But I think we can easily do a 10X or more if we get the right formula.
All right, Chris, I want to bring you in.
Derek is trying to figure out, you know, at this point, do social media, do they focus on social media to work with a player or some kind of hockey influencer?
And also, like you, I mean, I still think about the story that you sit on an airplane and you're like a medical sales device guy and you're with your colleagues and they open up the airplane magazine and there you are in an ad for Untuckin'.
They're like, dude, what are you doing in my airplane magazine?
I love that story.
It's so funny.
So you were like burning the candle, right, at both ends for a long time.
So you can probably relate to Derek in a sense on this.
Oh, yeah, Derek, congratulations.
Nice to meet you.
Let me ask you a question.
Have any professional players ever worn this product?
Right now, there are not any NHL players.
We just got a clearance.
And so I didn't want to approach equipment managers in the middle of the playoffs.
They've got so much going on.
Those guys never sleep.
And so we were kind of waiting for the right time.
There is an equipment managers conference coming up here shortly that we've been to before, but it wasn't as fruitful as we'd hoped because we didn't have clearance yet.
We had a player.
Maybe seven or eight years ago, pre-COVID, we had a player all lined up, but we didn't have the clearance.
And so that's kind of where we are right now.
I think with equipment, you got to get it on guys.
That's just my quick thought.
Because if my son was 17 and you're like, hey, give it to your son, I'd be like, who's wearing it?
Because it's around safety, so it's really important.
So do you have any money to...
To pay someone or what's your like?
Yeah, we do have a budget for that.
And originally we did find a player and actually our whole thing was we were going to lease them a Range Rover.
That was going to be our payment to them.
They were going to get a nice car out of it.
We had a two-year deal lined up and that's kind of where we were.
And I don't know that that wouldn't be a great idea now, but you tell me.
Well, the first thing is if you do bring on a player, you're going to still need a budget to market it, right?
Because you're going to use him.
in your ads, right?
He's not just going to miraculously make the product sell.
So you got to look at it like that.
I mean, we do this all the time.
We're just running a great ad with Garrett Cole right now.
Jacob Truba from the Rangers is also doing something.
Brock Bowers from the Raiders.
So I'm very familiar with it.
Yeah.
The other thing I want to say was that I don't know this sector, right, this category, but if there are competitors out there, it seems like your advantages are significant.
You did a lot of work in optics, as you mentioned, so you've got that credibility.
It sounds like you're bringing in really high quality.
I mean, if it's used on Audis and Porsches, the same material, and people are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for those cars, and now you're using it in the visors, to me, that means something.
I mean, these are premium materials.
If I had to pick between social media or whatever and then on to a human, I would definitely choose the human.
And not necessarily – I mean, Garrett Cole is still an amazing pitcher even though he's 30, 34, 35.
He's probably expensive for you guys, I imagine, Chris.
So I wouldn't go to NHL stars, right?
I would go for maybe – you mentioned equipment managers, but maybe kind of a player who's just – Not that well known, right?
There are plenty of players in the NHL who are – they're not getting the same kinds of endorsement deals but still might get some playing time.
Because you want to see it – I agree with Chris.
You want to see it on the player.
But, of course, you want to be very strategic about – how many dollars you put behind that.
Sure.
We do have some ins in that space.
Like right now, we're the main visor sponsor for a pro three-on-three league, which this summer there's a World Cup in Europe, which we will see some former NHL players wearing our product.
There's also the U.S.
season that's about to kick off that will have some pretty high-end players, not NHL, but some fairly well-known players, and they'll all be wearing our brand.
There's another...
If you're telling me that all players wear them and that yours is better than what they're wearing now, if those two things are true, then I might even go a totally different route and go to someone big and give them 25% of the company.
You're going to say, no way.
Well, no, I'd be open to that.
And that means if you can convince them, if Jack Hughes was sitting right here.
And Jack Hughes, and I had him here with me, and I said, you got to try this thing.
It is better than what you're wearing.
And he puts it on.
He's like, by the way, even if it's equal, I'll throw that aside.
But if it's better, and he's like, this is awesome.
I need it.
You want 25% of the company, and I'll give you 50 grand or whatever you can afford.
And maybe we can bring his brothers in too.
Yeah.
Yeah, but that's my, like my buddy had a cooling spray.
And he was almost did a deal with Venus Williams or Serena who wanted 50%.
And I was like, give her 80%.
Like once you, It's just because the products that like a shirt does, that doesn't work.
A product that you're using, people really believe.
If Jack Hughes is skating in that and starts to promote it amongst his friends and is it that, that can grow a ton.
So I think Guy's point is one way you go about a bunch, you get a bunch of, of guys who are, and by the NHL, you're in a great place.
They're not expensive anyway, right?
They're just not what you have to pay them compared to these other guys.
You go to, you go to guys who are maybe, you know, the third, fourth.
You can get them for nothing.
That's one route.
The other route is you've got one guy, you give him equity, and he is now part of your brand, and he's going to promote it because he thinks this brand can grow to a $30 million business or whatever number you think can grow to.
That's great advice.
I really appreciate it.
Yeah, I love that.
And then down the road, who knows?
Maybe baseball will require visors for batters at some point.
You never know.
Well, it's true.
You can transition that into anything.
Ski goggle.
If you're good at that.
thing that you do, then that's how you grow it even further.
Yeah.
The brand is called Hockey Ninja.
Derek, thanks so much for calling in.
Good luck.
Thank you guys.
Take care.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Good luck, Derek.
Chris, before I let you go, a question that I've been asking everybody who comes back on the show, which is if you could go back to when you started this, like knowing what you know now and all the experience you have as an operator and as a leader, what advice do you think would have been helpful?
What do you wish you would have known?
back when you started building Untucket that might have been helpful for you?
All this stuff is really hard, like really, really hard.
And listen, it's still going wrong, a lot of things for me.
You just can't get upset about it.
You can't get down about it.
You can't get depressed about it.
You got to just kind of keep moving forward.
You're going to have all the advice we just gave.
To implement all that is really challenging.
I know they're going to hang up.
All these people like I used to do and be like, love the idea, but how am I going to do that?
What do I do?
Where do I go?
You just got to find a way and realize that it's not going to be easy.
You might go spend that money on marketing and lose the seven grand you just raised.
Well, you got to figure something else out.
I put myself through so much pain and worry and depression because of things going wrong.
And now with the new brand, I kind of just shake it off.
Like, okay, I was waiting for something like that to happen.
So I just wish I enjoyed the journey more.
Like what all of these guys are doing.
I mean, I love this.
Like these are the, just to get to the point where all these guys we just talked to are at, that's admirable number one.
And you're way ahead of 99% of the rest of the world.
So if you fail even, go to the next idea because you clearly have what it takes if you've gotten this far.
It's Chris Riccobono, founder of Untucket.
Chris, thanks so much for coming back onto the show.
Thank you, Guy.
I really appreciate it.
And by the way, if you haven't heard Chris's original How I Built This episode, you got to go back and check it out.
It's such a good episode.
We'll put a link to it in the podcast description.
And here's one of my favorite moments from that interview.
Tell me about that first batch of inventory because, I mean, you say that...
The shirts were terrible, which is shocking.
I mean, I don't, when it comes off the boat in New York, you open the boxes and what?
You see right away that they're not good?
Well, actually, when people started wearing them and saying that they now used it for a rag for their car, that's when it really, but you know, it's funny.
You know, it's funny.
I didn't, we thought through it and said, you know what?
We'll one day get them back.
We'll keep a list of those people and I'm going to lose X amount of customers.
I mean, you didn't have a choice.
This is entrepreneurialism.
You just have to survive.
Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week.
And by the way, please make sure to check out my newsletter.
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Leave a message there and make sure to tell us how to reach you and we'll put...
All of this information in the podcast description as well.
This episode was produced by Chris Messini with music composed by Ramtin Arablui.
It was edited by John Isabella.
Our audio engineer was Anli Huang.
Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Carla Estevez, JC Howard, Catherine Seifer, Casey Herman, Carrie Thompson, Sam Paulson, Neva Grant, and Elaine Coates.
I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.
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